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Monthly Archives: August 2012

A recent survey of marketing and advertising executives by The Creative Group found a major lack of interest for Pinterest (I know, that totally rhythms!) Here is a small break down of the findings:

Only 7% said they are currently using the platform

10% said they are planning on utilizing it

44% said they had no interest in using the platform

A shocking 18% didn’t even know it existed!

Image via The Creative Group

This lack of attention to Pinterest resembles the initial lack of interest many marketing executives were showing for various social media platforms or social media as a whole, haven’t we learned our lesson yet? As a social network Pinterest has grown to a user base of 20 million in the last year, and has raised $100 million at a $1.5 billion valuation by Japanese ecommerce experts Rakuten. I can’t see how any marketer can ignore a platform that can provide them with access to millions of users, either for the purpose of of direct communication or just monitoring and analysis. As a marketer you must know anything that keeps your potential audience engaged and browsing is worth spending some thought on. I can even see how Pinterest can be used during design or idea stages of product, in a way it could be utilized as indirect crowd sourcing. It is shocking how still some marketing executives are so quick to dismiss new social platforms or technologies. It is simple, more time spend on Pinterest equals more eyeballs on your brand/product. And with the introduction of third party app such as Pinfluencer (Klout for Pinterest), Pinshopper (putting price tags on Pinterest items), and Curalate (image recognition & aggregation) the show has just begun!

If consumers are voluntarily going on your website and sharing products they find appealing with their friends wouldn’t you want to know about it? and perhaps engage them in some sort of dialogue? It is ok for brands to ignore their fans simply because they are on a new platform that the brand doesn’t have time for?!?! Isn’t ignoring your brand admirers marketing sacrilege?!

While recent data from Jirafe, a New York-based ecommerce analytics company suggests Pinterest is more of a traffic driver than revenue, it is still too early to tell what type of effect Pinterest will have on ecommerce. Even though Jirafe’s study points to low conversion rates for Pinterest, there is other data that suggests the contrary. A recent article in Forbes magazine states:

Online retailers, like Katia Beauchamp from Birchbox, have noted that the increasing number of referrals generated by Pinterest makes it extremely valuable as an acquisition channel. According to MSNBC, 40 percent of all social media driven purchases are expected to come from Pinterest during this quarter. Shopify, a company that offers software for creating online stores, notes that Pinterest users are 10% more likely to make a purchase (within the Shopify network) than those who arrive from other sites.

So what to make of all this? Like I said, it is still too early to tell, and we can’t base these decisions on a couple of studies, especially since the type of metrics used in each study might differ and could potentially skew the data and hence the findings. But what doesn’t change here is the need for marketing executives to be open and accepting of new technologies, this is not to say that every company needs to on every platform (we all know social media mishmash can be a serious disease), but at least give these platforms the benefit of the doubt, and some much deserved thought and analysis.

Yesterday I was reading Danny Brown’s blog (one of my favourites!) and came across a very interesting post titled “Sorry, Content Dudes, But It’s Just Plain Old Marketing“. In the posts Danny discusses all the hype around content marketing and its strong proponents. Danny raises the question whether it is content marketing that they are actually doing or just good old plain marketing. His belief is that content is merely a tactic and that at the end of the day the goal is still the same! Making the buyer fall in love with, and selling products, services, or expertise.

But that creation of content is simply a tactic in the bigger picture of marketing. The content is created to market the end product – you’re not marketing the actual content.

I do believe in the power of content to engage your audience, bring value-added benefits, and increase your sales, however, Danny is right; we shouldn’t think of this as a whole new type of marketing that will save the day, it is merely a tactic (and a damn good one) to add to your marketing arsenal. Now this brings me to another concern, have we as marketers become too obsessed with categorizing everything and constantly trying to rebrand ourselves? Are we being too hung up on fads rather than digging for the real meat? Have we started using all these labels to do better marketing, or to market ourselves better? Yes sir, I’m also a content marketing expert!

I guess what I am trying to say is let’s not get too bent out of shape over labels and jargon, these new techniques are merely tools brought about by modern technology and new paradigms of human interaction. At the end of the day these new tactics still need to be a part of an overall marketing effort, and cannot be relied on as an end-to-end solution.

Technology has been making our lives easier for some time now, changing how we do almost everything, and that includes applying to jobs. It is true that the internet, social networks (i.e. Linkedin), and Web 2.0 as a whole has made accessing job opportunities easier, but that doesn’t necessarily equate into getting that job. The downside to equal access is the fact that now your resume will be lost in a sea of other candidates. So what is the solution to this dilemma? Easy! Utilize more tech! that’s right, if you want to stand out you have to push yourself to be on the edge of everything new and exciting and this is where some new services available can really make a difference. Here is a list of a few I have found interesting and useful.

Essentially what Vizify does is turn your personal data into an interactive infographic. There is a large degree of customization with the capability to connect other social services such as Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin. There are some really cool animations and features that can potentially engage the right recruiter or hiring manager!

This is a Facebook-powered app that attempts to visualize your social profile. You have two choices, either connecting through Facebook or Linkedin, your choice depends on what type of a visual profile you are aiming for. The Linkedin option provides a more professional looking graphical profile